Towards Clustering Algorithms in Wireless Sensor Networks-A Survey

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are emerging as essential and popular ways of providing pervasive computing environments for various applications. In all these environments energy constraint is the most critical problem that must be considered. Clustering is introduced to WSNs because of its network scalability, energy-saving attributes and network topology stabilities. However, there also exist some disadvantages associated with individual clustering scheme, such as additional overheads during cluster-head (CH) selection, assignment and cluster construction process. In this paper, we discuss and compare several aspects and characteristics of some widely explored clustering algorithms in WSNs, e.g. clustering timings, attributes, metrics, advantages and disadvantages of corresponding clustering algorithms. This paper also presents a discussion on the future research topics and the challenges of clustering in WSNs.